


And when you move, I'm moved

by lyrabelacqua2580



Category: Anne of Green Gables (TV 1985) & Related Fandoms, Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:35:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21550876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyrabelacqua2580/pseuds/lyrabelacqua2580
Summary: Post 3x09"Gilbert would like to think he is at least half as brave as Anne, but as he stands in front of Green Gables with his heart on his sleeve, he is utterly terrified.   There is a knot of nerves in his stomach growing and growing with each passing second.  Taking a deep breath, he steps up on the whitewashed porch and raps his knuckles against the door, two small knocks in quick succession followed by a third sharper knock.  Stepping back, he awaits his fate."Or Gilbert finally comes to his senses.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 346





	And when you move, I'm moved

Gilbert would like to think he is at least half as brave as Anne, but as he stands in front of Green Gables with his heart on his sleeve, he is utterly terrified. There is a knot of nerves in his stomach growing and growing with each passing second. Taking a deep breath, he steps up on the whitewashed porch and raps his knuckles against the door, two small knocks in quick succession followed by a third sharper knock. Stepping back, he awaits his fate.

It is Anne herself who opens the door. The dusk of the evening swallows the fierce red colour of her hair, but as she steps out onto the porch to meet him, the light from his lantern catches her hair and sets the colour ablaze. It is loose and gleaming and the sight of her knocks the breath clean out of his lungs. “Gilbert…what brings you to Green Gables?” There is surprise in her voice and a hint of wariness had crept into her eyes. He doesn’t miss the fact that her gaze never meets his. 

He struggles for a moment before clearing his throat. “I came to return your pen,” he says and instantly winces at how incredibly lame it sounds. He soothed a hand over the back of his neck before reaching into his pocket and holding out the pen to her. “Here.”

She takes it from him wordlessly, and he watches her fidget with it for a moment until she raises her gaze to meet his. It is then that he finally plucks up the courage to ask, “Anne, would you take a walk with me?”

She nods and slips the pen in the pocket of her apron. They move steadily through the yard and he leads her to the river. At one point, she stumbles over a wayward branch and he reaches out to catch her hand. He hears her leave out a shaky breath and he flexes his fingers when her hand leaves his. It feels like a current is running through him and he thinks back to the way Ms. Stacey’s bulb had sparked to life. 

The low, evening sun is a sweet reflection on the water and he sets the lamp down halfway down the low, flat wooden bridge that transverses the river. They sit side by side. His feet nearly touch the water but hers are safe. There is a charged silence pulsing in the air between them. 

“Anne, I-“

“I just wanted to say that I’m very happy for you and Winifred,” she blurts out suddenly. “Really, I am, Gilbert. And I shouldn’t have left you that note. It was stupid and foolish and… positively ridiculous and…”

“I didn’t propose to Winifred,” he says. “I ended things between us this morning. It wasn’t fair to her to let it continue any longer.” There was no regret in Gilbert’s voice. Yesterday, his mind had been a ribbon of tangled thoughts and questions. Unwittingly, he had taken a walking tour of the island to visit Anne’s favourite haunts as if drawn to them by some invisible force. It was at the cliff’s edge overlooking the Lake of Shining Waters that his mind went still and he was left with absolute clarity. The answer had always been here in Avonlea. The answer had always been Anne. 

The realisation had hit him like a fist. Anne Shirley Cuthbert was a force of nature who had shaken his world since the day she had wacked him over the head with her slate and there could be no substitute in his eyes. Of course, the lies he had fed himself tasted even worse on the way up. Winifred may have been witty, clever, beautiful and easy to be around but she was not Anne, and it was Anne he wanted. For her part, Winifred had accepted his declaration with a graciousness he wasn’t sure he deserved and had confided in him that a small part of her was relieved as she had set her sight on other ambitions. They had parted on good terms, and Gilbert had felt the tension in his shoulders lift as he walked out the door of the Roses’ home in Charlottetown.

Anne’s lips part at his words and she lets out a breath. Her blue eyes meet his and a tentative hope takes up residence in his body as her expression softens. “I didn’t receive any note,” he says softly. The knot in his stomach tightens as he wonders at its contents. On his return to Avonlea, he had quite literally bumped into Diana at the train station. Her demeanour had surprised him and her words had set a fire in him. She had yelled at him about a note that Anne had supposedly left for him and gone to great lengths to tell him what an idiot he was. Gilbert hadn’t set off for Charlottetown this morning thinking that he had any chance of a future with Anne, especially after the messy way they had left things at the Ruins, but after his encounter with Diana he didn’t think he had the strength to wait another night to find out the truth of Anne’s feelings towards him. 

“You didn’t get the note?” Anne lets out a sigh of relief as he shakes his head. Her fingers tuck some of her hair behind her left ear as she takes in his words. Gilbert desperately wishes that it was his hands in her hair. Restlessly, he has lain awake at night marvelling at its beauty and imagining how it would feel to glide his fingers through it. 

“What did the note say?” 

Anne swallows. There is a slight hesitation in her reply but she perseveres anyway never having been one to shy away from doing the brave thing. “It said that I was in love with you, Gilbert Blythe.” He knew then that the tender way she said those words would stay with him for the rest of his life. There would never come a day where he would think back on this moment and it would not bring him comfort. “And that I wanted my pen back,” she says as an afterthought. 

Gilbert lets out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “I feel the same,” he says. His voice cracks on the words. A part of him still can’t believe that this is happening, that everything he wants is suddenly within his grasp. He always hoped for a future with Anne, but she was the sun, the moon and all of the stars and part of him never believed he would be that lucky. 

“Let me hear you say it.” 

Gilbert happily complies with her request surrendering the first and last truth of his heart. “I’m in love with you, Anne Shirley Cuthbert.” A smile lights up her face at his words and he finds himself answering in kind. 

A swift breeze slips through the air and Anne laughs as it sends her hair askew. Gilbert laughs too. She looks as beautiful as she had done that night at the Ruins dancing under the moonlight. “I think the trees were holding their breath,” she says. 

They look out at the river for a minute before Anne says. “Gil?” He loves the way his name sounds from her lips.

“Yes?” 

“That night at the Ruins, I’m tempted to blame the moonshine, but that isn’t all of it. Yes, I was drunk, but I was also scared and confused and I didn’t want to be selfish with you,” she says. “I know that all you heard was rejection, but Winifred’s father was offering so much more than I could ever give. School, money, Paris. I wasn’t ready for the kind of choice that had the potential to either ruin my life or yours. You deserve so much, and I…I haven’t even had my first kiss yet. We haven’t even… It’s too big of a decision for me to make. You wanted more than I could give to you…the sheer magnitude of what you wanted scared me, and I need you to understand how petrifying it is to be the one thing standing in the way of you and your dreams. I never want to hold you back.” 

Her words catch Gilbert by the throat. His head and his heart had been at conflict with each other these past few months. At the Lake of Shining Waters, he started being honest with himself and admitted that, yes, there could have been a life in Paris, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that choosing that path would mean he would know loss for all his life. The world went still and he knew his answer. Money and the Sorbonne and an apartment in Paris could never replace the loss of Anne from his life. All these great things would always feel like a loss and not a gain if he didn’t have Anne standing by his side. In every version of the future he had dreamed of, Anne had always been standing at the centre. 

It wasn’t so much of a sudden revelation, but rather a quiet acceptance of something he had always known. A hundred times, he had wished he had chosen his words better that night at the Ruins. He had spoken both too rashly and too vaguely and now was the time to set things right. It was time to be clear with his intentions. 

It’s not enough to say that Gilbert had been lost for some time now. In truth, he had been struggling since his father died, and had been trying to grow up too fast. Since his father got sick, he had taken on so much responsibility. For years before his father finally passed away, his mind had been filled with finding ways to pay the bills, making sure all his father’s needs were met, and making sure the farm was attended to while balancing his schoolwork. He never really got to enjoy his childhood. There had been little time for friendships and games. In fact, his interactions with Anne were the only times over the past few years where he had actually felt his age. Teasing her and pulling her pigtails and competing in Spelling Bee’s had been a welcome respite from what was happening at home. 

Around the Roses, things were stuffy, formal and adult. This had almost been easier and more comfortable to Gilbert after the childhood he had endured, but in the back of his mind he had always been wistful for the way Anne made him feel. He wanted to make his father proud, but sometimes he thought that his father would be prouder of him if he acted his age. He wanted to drink moonshine and play Red Rover and take things with Anne one small step at a time.

“Anne, that night I was looking for any excuse not to propose to Winifred,” he says. Her eyes are fixed on his and, God, all he wants in this moment is to find the right words to make things right. “I’m sorry for pushing you to make a decision you weren’t ready for and putting so much pressure on you to make that decision for me. That was a selfish thing to do. The truth is, I already had my answer. If Winifred had been the right person for me, there never would have been a choice.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying this possibility of a future with you, whatever that might bring, outweighs any other future with any other girl. You tip the scales every time.”

“How can there be anything wrong with spending your life with the person you love?” Anne murmurs softly as if she’s sharing a secret. She turns to him, tucking one foot under herself. “So, what now Gilbert Blythe? And, please, don’t say marriage. I feel a sense of impending calamity if Rachel Lynde finds out I turned down not one but two proposals in the same day.” 

Gilbert is dumbfounded. “Oh? I didn’t realise there was a queue.” 

“It’s a mile long,” she teases. “This afternoon I was rudely distracted from the most thrilling, romantical novel by Charlie Sloane hurtling pebbles at my window. I thought he was going to break it in his enthusiasm. He proposed as if I were Juliet on a balcony and he were Romeo, but Charlie Sloane is no Romeo. He did tell me I had a nice horse once. Peak romance in Avonlea, I suppose. Thankfully, Marilla chased him off with a sweeping brush.” Anne glances at him and there is a look of such heart-breaking honesty in her eyes that it makes him start. “Gil, I’m sixteen. I’m not ready for-“

Gilbert lets out a breath. “Rest easy, Anne-girl. If these last few weeks have taught me anything, it is that I am not ready for marriage quite yet,” he says but he feels the need to make one thing very clear. “I’m not saying we should court or get engaged. I’m saying we should get married. I know I want to be married to you. Someday. Whatever pace you want, I’ll be there right beside you. But I need you to know that I don’t have any doubts about us. There will never be anyone for me but you.”

He loves the way her face lights up in that moment. He didn’t think it was possible for her to look any more beautiful. “Gilbert Blythe, that is the most romantical thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“That’s surprising. “Nice horse” was such tough competition. I can’t believe I beat that.”

She giggles, and it’s a sound he wants to hear every day for the rest of his life. “It was definitely a contender.”

They stare at each other for a few seconds and the mood becomes more serious. “Anne, if we don’t have a courtship or an engagement or a marriage, what do we have between us? I’m not sure I can go back to just being friends with you.”

“We have an understanding,” she says.

“An understanding, then. Should we shake on it?”

“I can think of something better.” Her cheeks flit through seven shades of red before settling on scarlet. 

For his part, Gilbert can’t help the way his eyes flick down to look at her lips. He is almost too shy to move but, slowly, he moves closer to her, until she’s close enough to touch, close enough to kiss. His heart is beating so fast, and there are jolts of nervous energy sparking through him. Before he can work up the courage, her lips are on his. Her kiss is a sweet shock. It’s a whisper of a kiss, and it’s nearly over before he can even register that it’s happening. 

They pull apart, and they look at each other. Smiles grace both their faces. It isn’t long before Gilbert follows her lips and pulls her into a deeper kiss. Her lips are soft and sweet, and he thinks he could kiss her for days and still be left wanting more. His hands tangle in her hair with one palm cradling her jaw. He nearly moans when Anne’s arms find their way around his neck, her fingers playing with the curls she finds there. 

Their kisses become deeper, his tongue sliding across the seam of her lips. Instinctively, she seems to know what he wants and she lets out a soft gasp as his tongue sweeps softly into her mouth.

The reality of Anne after so many years of imagination is overwhelming. It sets every one of his senses ablaze. The softness of her hair between his fingers, the taste of her lips, the smell of her soap, the sound of her faint moan at the touch of his tongue.

For a moment, they are the only two people in the entire world. They kiss for an age. They kiss until his jaw aches and then just a little more. They kiss until he knows the feel of her lips as well as he could rattle off the alphabet, until the taste of her is as familiar as the sweet tart taste of the apples from his orchard. They kiss until the dusk of the evening turns into a dark, starry night.

Eventually, they break apart and he says, “Marilla will be getting worried. May I walk you home?” Her head is settled in the crook of his neck and her hand is over his heart. For a moment, she doesn’t move and he imagines she is savouring this moment as much as he is.

“Yes, I should get back,” she concedes. “Though I wish we could-“

“I could…We could go for a walk tomorrow, if you want?” He asks, desperately wanting her to say yes and at the same time wondering if he would be able to go an hour without the taste of her lips.

“If you’re lucky,” she says with a smile. He watches her raise herself from the bridge and dust off her skirt. Reluctantly, he gets up himself. There is a smile tugging at his lips as well, and he wonders if he’ll ever be able to stop smiling. Gilbert can’t remember the last time he was this happy.

They stroll back to Green Gables, and he holds her warm hand in his with the promise of a future hanging gently between them. They reach the Cross of the Four Winds in what feels like no time at all. He knows if they walk straight ahead, they will reach Green Gables in five short minutes, but if they go left, he’ll be able to hold her hand just a little while longer.

“Let’s go left,” Anne says. He doesn’t need to be told twice. 

Later that night, when he arrives to his own home with a goodbye kiss fresh on his lips, he places the little, gold ring in a safe place. He would have need of it someday.


End file.
